Pentagonal Pool run dry
I had pretty much convinced myself that I wouldn't use Blurb's "layflat" book format again, much as I like it. It's very expensive, and – as I discovered last time – the books are actually made in the USA, despite being created via Blurb UK, and therefore incur an import tax on arrival. Ouch! But then recently I found a cache of the original files I'd made for an exhibition in 2004-5, Dry Light, which mainly made use of the digital images I'd been taking at the tail end of the project that had occupied my daily lunch hours back in my days of wage-slavery, photographing what I had dubbed the "pentagonal pool" on the Southampton University campus.
The idea behind these files was that, in order to compensate for the small maximum printable size of these digital files (mainly from a 3MB camera), I would arrange them in long panels of multiple images, which could usefully exploit the patterns and variations that arise when a single but extremely variable subject is photographed repetitively over a long period of time. To this end I created a number of large single files combining three or four photographs, which could be printed for framing on the "panoramic" paper that Epson used to sell (essentially an A2 sheet cut in half lengthways). I thought these files had gone missing long ago, but found them hiding in a sub-directory on a backup drive, and was pleasantly surprised by their quality.
I then remembered that the problem, from a book-production point of view, had been that at the time Blurb's ready-made page layouts could not accommodate a single file laid across a double-spread of pages. The only workaround was to put two horizontal pairs on facing pages, but this gave a quite different impression to the original idea and, worse, there was no way to make use of the groups of three: the central image would at best have to be cut in half and would anyway be hopelessly distorted by the "gutter" between the pages. So the original Pentagonal Pool book of 2006 was, in one sense, a triumph of creativity over adversity but also, it has to be said, a bit of a travesty of my original intention.
Having rediscovered the original exhibition files, though, my immediate thought was that these would be perfect for a "layflat" book. Which they are, and here it is:
Now, you know and I know that no-one is ever likely to buy a copy of this book [1] – it would cost them £60, after all, plus any import tax for non-US customers – so I'm not going to make it publicly available, except as a PDF for £4.99. However, if any reader of this blog does want to buy a copy, by all means send me an email (my address is in the "View My Complete Profile" section at top right) and then I'll either pass on a link so you can buy one directly, or we can wait until Blurb's next 40% off! sale, and I'll buy a copy on your behalf for them to despatch to you.
Pentagonal Pool brimful
1. I do generally buy at least two copies of my own books: one for me, and the other for deposit in my old college library, which has been in continuous operation since 1263 and unlikely to be going out of business any time soon.
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